1. Technical Field
This invention relates in general to curing photosetting adhesives and in particular to devices and methods for curing photosetting adhesives in a pivot cartridge assembly with concentrated UV light.
2. Description of the Related Art
Referring to FIG. 1, an information storage system comprising a hard disk drive 11 is shown. Drive 11 has a base 13 containing a plurality of stacked, parallel magnetic disks 15 (one shown) which are closely spaced apart. Disks 15 are rotated by a motor located therebelow about a central drive hub 17. An actuator 21 is rotatably mounted to base 13 about a pivot assembly 23. A controller 25 is mounted to base 13 for selectively moving actuator 21 as will be described below.
Actuator 21 has a mounting support 27, a pair of parallel, cantilevered load beams or suspensions 29 extending from mounting support 27, and a head gimbal assembly 31 having at least one magnetic read/write head secured to each suspension 29 for magnetically reading data from or magnetically writing data to disks 15. Suspensions 29 have a spring-like quality which biases or maintains them in parallel relationship relative to one another. A motor assembly 33 having a conventional voice coil motor is also mounted to pivot assembly 23 opposite head gimbal assemblies 31. Movement of actuator 21 (indicated by arrows) moves head gimbal assemblies 31 radially across tracks on the disks 15 until the heads on assemblies 31 settle on the target tracks.
During operation (FIG. 2), bearings 35 inside pivot assembly 23 emit oil vapor and aerosol droplets of grease which are a potential source of contamination in the disk drive. Reducing this type of contamination is important to improve the reliability of disk drives. In pivot assembly 23, a photosetting, anaerobic adhesive 37 is used to bond and seal the rings of the bearings 35 to a stationary housing 39 and an internal pivot shaft 45. Some adhesive 37 is located in the very small, circumferential gaps 46, 48 (approximately one to ten microns each) which extend between each bearing 35, and shaft 45 and housing 39, respectively. A hole 40 extends through the side of housing 39 into its interior and is used for mounting purposes.
Typically, the adhesive 37 is cured by passing the assembled pivots 23 under a UV light 41. However, due to geometrical constraints, such as the opaque flange 43 on the pivot shaft 45, access to adhesive 37 is severely limited. In addition, the small size of gaps 46, 48 makes access to them severely limited. Most of the emitted light 41 reflects off the pivot and oven surfaces with few UV rays penetrating gaps 46, 48 and the narrow slit or space 47 (approximately 0.1 mm in width) between the perimeter of flange 43 and the inner diameter of housing 39. This results in joints with uncured adhesive and lower bond strengths. When the pivot 23 is later subjected to file operating temperatures, the uncured adhesive will outgas from parts and may also propagate cracks in the bond, which can lead to pivot failure.
To solve this problem, pivot manufacturers have increased the time the pivots are exposed to the UV light to ensure that the adhesive has sufficiently cured. Unfortunately, this solution requires more power and longer process times which result in increased manufacturing costs and process inefficiencies.
Therefore, it is a feature of the present invention to provide improved methods for directing UV light to the less accessible portions of pivots to provide a completely cured bond.
It is another feature of the present invention to provide decreased manufacturing costs and cycle times for processing pivots.
One embodiment of an adhesive curing apparatus and method utilizes the end of a tube or optical fiber extending from a UV light source. The tube end is inserted into the mounting hole in the side of a pivot assembly. The tube projects concentrated UV light into the interior of the assembly for curing the adhesive used to bond the bearings to the shaft and the housing. The tip at the end of the tube has beam splitting mirrors or prisms to distribute the UV light more effectively. The interior of the assembly, including the outer surface of the shaft and the inner surface of the housing are smooth, polished metal to further enhance the intensity of the light incident on the adhesive.